WS-Food: Interface standard for the food industry

The term Weihenstephaner Standards (WS) refers to interfaces to record machine data. The WS food standard particularly simplifies the communication between food manufacturer, machine supplier and IT provider.

Via uniform interface, manufacturers can connect all machines to the IT and new IT projects can be implemented without major costs. An exact article analysis of each device being part of the process is possible allowing production managers to easily optimize the efficiency of their production processes. Good reasons for Bizerba to rely on this standard.

Communication without misunderstandings

Devices of many machine manufacturers communicate via Ethernet interfaces using their own protocol and evaluation software. For large food companies with sophisticated IT departments such isolated solutions are often not sufficient: In view of the large variety of equipment from different manufacturers they run the risk of losing control over implementation costs for the coordination of connecting points and analysis tools.

Here, the Weihenstephaner Standards come into play. If a customer requires the device to comply with the WS-Food specification, there can be no misunderstanding regarding the EDP interface. The physical connecting point, interface in terms of content and data evaluation including reporting are uniformly defined.

There is no need for the corporate user to invest in individual modifications which also saves valuable time: Instead of more than twelve months, the implementation based on WS-Food only takes one and a half months on average

WS-Food comes standard with: Bizerba weigh price labeling systems

In future, the meat industry could also achieve the high standards already reached for bottling systems, for example. Here, each request for proposal stipulates that the machine must have an interface in accordance with WS-Food. Bizerba has implemented WS-Food in many devices and paves the way for this standard also to be established in the food industry one day.